Parts of the Seder

The Passover seder is traditionally divided into 15 steps, sometimes viewed as the steps from slavery toward freedom. In addition to the traditional 15 steps, our listing provides the constituent parts of maggid, the telling of the Passover story, as well as several other rituals commonly found at the seder.

One of the crucial elements of slavery was that the Jews were not able to form themselves as a viable community. Egyptian taskmasters rigidly regulated their lives, preventing any sense of communion and solidarity. And so, on Pesach night, the essence of the seder is to constitute ourselves as a Jewish community.

Three quintessential acts define Jewish community, and all three of those are at the core of our seder experience:

We break bread, demonstrating our covenantal relationship to each other and to God.

While the four cups are central to the traditional haggadah, they are in many ways a symbol ready to be imbued with additional meanings. Many feminist seders connect the four cups to women in Jewish history. These readings link each of God's four promises to specific women in Jewish history. [more]